Well,
the interface of Windows Mobile is something that can give almost
anyone proper nightmares, especially if you haven’t used it for a long
time, meaning you´re still not get used to its peculiarities. Version
6.5 that has been released recently, improves on certain aspects and if
anything, at least the home screen is finger- friendly now. Getting
deeper into the interface, however, means you will face the much the
same lists of tiny letters and unhandy controls. The difference to
iPhone, Android and webOS is still enormous. All these younger
operating systems are really easy to get used to in several minutes and
even a young kid can handle them with ease. If, however, you kid
manages to wrap his or her mind around Windows Mobile, you should take
them to a school for gifted children.

The home screen of GIGA-BYTE GSmart S1200 without personalization

That´s
why the interface customization packs for Windows are not just
advisable, but mandatory feature. It seems at GIGA-BYTE are well aware
of the fact, although they seem to have taken a slightly unusual
approach in the particular case of the GSmart S1200. Instead of coming
up with a single customization pack like Samsung and HTC, they stake on
variety and provide not just one, but six Flash-based interface
customizations to cover the true face of Windows Mobile 6.5
professional. So, what you have is:

GIGA-BYTE stake on variety and provides not just one, but six Flash-based interface customizations

The latter four
have been influenced by the Chinese culture and are really well drawn.
You can see the Chinese motives not just in the wallpapers, but in the
icons that resemble the small tiles used in Mahjong games. The Meng
packs allow access to five home screens, one basic and four additional
ones that you can switch between by sliding your finger up- and
downwards or to your left or right. They host eight shortcuts each,
leading to various functions. The wallpapers change depending on the
particular time and some of them are pieces of fine art. The one that
comes with Chinese Painting remains the same, but its backlight fades
or intensifies depending on the time of the day. There are cranes
flying around on the screen every now and then, which looks really
cool. You have three more screens with shortcuts on them and one
dedicated to widgets that we are going to discuss later.

The Chinese Painting interface

Live Nature
changes its appearance depending on weather and time – sometimes clouds
will appear, or you will see animated rain, shining sun etc. All this
happens on the background of a lushly green meadow, birds and airplanes
pop up every now and then and sometimes you get to see even cows and
snails. As a whole, this is a really amusing interface. Sliding a
finger upwards opens a menu of three tabs that features shortcuts to
almost all functions. The widgets are in the opposite direction.

Live Nature changes its appearance depending on weather and time

The menus of Live Nature

And last, meet the most complex interface,
the Smart Zone. It consists of one main screen that hosts a large
clock, weather forecast pane and 8 additional sub-screens dedicated to
various applications. To get to any of them, you must first open the
home screen or enter a menu that shows all of them.

The Smart Zone interface

As
a whole, we always appreciate variety and this is one of the aspects
that we do like about the interface of the GIGA-BYTE GSmart S1200.
Unfortunately, many screens do not equate to superior functionality. As
we have already emphasized on several occasions, the things you see
most often are just shortcuts and not active applications. The
difference to the HTC´s TouchFLO 3D interface is huge, where almost all
things you need are placed on the tabs of the startup screen and you
rarely need to leave it. In the case of the GIGA-BYTE GSmart S1200, the
home screen is just something that makes the navigation (finger
friendly) to various functions (most of them not personalized) easier.
Moreover, you just can´t figure out what´s on the next screen before
you get there, so you will have to remember where the functions you
need are, so as not to waste too much time searching around.

The widgets are
just another painful revelation about the interface. Judging by their
implementation, we are under the impression that the designer team at
GIGA-BYTE has heard they are all the rage these days and whipped
something up in a slap-dash manner. The widgets are, well, huge and the
3.1-inch screen of the GIGA-BYTE GSmart S1200 can host up to three
without them getting overlapping (there are just 7 anyway). Actually,
just the two clocks and the one dedicated to weather forecasts are
active; the others are simply shortcuts.

The Widgets of GYGA-BYTE GSmart S1200

The list of shortcomings,
however, doesn’t stop here. The GIGA-BYTE GSmart S1200 comes without
accelerometer. “Well yeah…”, you will say, “but Windows allows me to
switch the screen orientation manually”. This is true indeed, the thing
is the shiny interface packs don’t exactly work in landscape mode,
which leads to certain troubles with the keyboard that we are going to
tell you about in the part dedicated to messaging.

Finally,
there is no way we turn a blind eye to the sluggish operational speed
of the phone. The transition effects stutter and this really ruins the
overall impression, not to mention that menus take at least 2 seconds
to open. The GIGA-BYTE GSmart S1200 is significantly snappier when
running the standard Windows Mobile interface, which simply means the
Flash packs have not been properly optimized. As a whole, the shiny and
amusing interface will entertain you for some time, but once you´ve
gotten used to it, all you will need is comfort of use. Ultimately, the
interface lags far behind its rivals in terms of ease of use.

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